


Keep It Simple, Stupid

by Shatteeran



Series: Life in PowerPoint Presentations [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, But a happy ending nonetheless, Crack, Crack with a Fluffy Ending, Crack with a Happy Ending, F/M, Getting Together, Liam has no clue what's going on, Liam's in over his head, Love Confessions, M/M, Obviously Crack, PowerPoint, Presentation, Urh Durrhh, a splash of angst, may be fluffy, whatevs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-08-06 21:42:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 16,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16395617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatteeran/pseuds/Shatteeran
Summary: “Listen, Little Wolf, I did some very long, thorough, thinking… And I’ve concluded that you’re in love with me.”“I am NOT."“See, I knew you’d be contrary about this, too, so I…”“I am NOT contrary.”“So I made a PowerPoint presentation. We start in 5 minutes.”





	1. Start At The End, Dunbar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TheodoreR](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheodoreR/gifts).



> So I've been in a funk.  
> Not really writing anything because I'm always procrastinating until I've found the right time. Until I can give a storyline the attention it needs and this community the story it deserves... It never happens.
> 
> Then this idea came... It's moronic. And it can't be very long. And if the plot isn't to be taken seriously, maybe I can afford to not take the writing seriously either (it's a total lie. I'm actually posting as fast as I can so I don't have time to think about it twice.)
> 
> So I wrote this without saving my work. Without proof-reading. Without a second thought, really.
> 
> But it's out and hopefully it will amuse you a little bit.  
> If not... let's make this a thing where I just logged a failed attempt and it will give me courage to try again tomorrow.

Liam is killing it on Fortnite when Theo barges in his room like he’s got “entering without knocking” privileges. He doesn’t. But the chimera seems nonplussed, even has the nerve to critically eye the pile of clean clothes precariously balanced on his unmade bed. Liam may have committed to fold and deposit them in their rightful drawers two hours ago. He’s sitting on the floor in his underwear instead, too lazy to fight with the laundry for a space on the bed (he’d tried but had eventually deemed the tentative too dangerous). Still, Theo’s got no right to judge. It’s not like the chimera is the one doing laundry in the first place (he is, more often than not).

“What do you want, asshole?”, Liam asks, because Theo appears resolute to continue to invade his space until his victim pays attention to him. Truth be told, Liam knows he should pause the game, but he can’t. 

“Oh, that’s going to make things so much harder”, Theo mutters, tone dripping with annoyance. But it’s all an act. Nothing Theo ever says is to be taken at face value. He’s complex and deep like that. “Listen, Little Wolf, I did some very long, thorough, thinking…”

“That never bodes well…”, Liam says, because his mouth filter is not great when he’s at his best and he can’t be expected to master it better when he’s playing. Did he mention he’s winning?

“And I’ve concluded that you’re in love with me”, Theo finishes. He would talk over the President. That’s how much he loves the sound of his own gravelly voice. 

Liam’s character on screen violently dies. Headshot. Seriously? He forcefully pushes the power button on his console. Hard reset. Rage quitting is naughty, but today isn’t apparently about gaming etiquette. 

“I am NOT”, Liam blurts out. He doesn’t know why he feels insulted. In all fairness, his affront is probably a little mean towards Theo. But the teenager feels like he’s entitled to be insensitive. 

Theo tuts condescendingly and Liam lunges at him. The bastard sidesteps. 

“See, I knew you’d be contrary about this, too, so I…”

“I am NOT contrary”, Liam thunders and in spite of himself, he has started to prowl around Theo, looking for an angle to attack.

“So I made a PowerPoint presentation” Theo pushes, delighted. Liam doesn’t think he’s ever heard him say ‘PowerPoint’ before; it throws him off track in the most curious way. “We start in 5 minutes.”

The boy then exits the room without another word… except he’s Theo fucking Raeken so he glances at Liam one last time over his shoulder as he passes the threshold. A one-eyed once-over. It isn’t in the slightest bit sexual, but Liam suddenly feels very naked either way. 

“A word of advice? Wear pants.”

The jeans Liam throws at him hit the wall, and he’s left with the echo of Theo’s trademark snicker resounding down the hall. Soon enough, he goes to collect his clothes and dresses up, halfway-through deciding that he might as well make a detour towards the bathroom to freshen up. He still joins Theo in the Geyer’s living-room four minutes and thirty seconds later. Well, he guesses. Because he’s not petty enough to have set a timer. But it doesn’t matter, because do you know who is petty enough? Theo Raeken, that’s who.

“Right on time, Little Wolf”, the fucker exclaims, very obviously checking the time on his phone. “Told you he would make it”, he adds.

And that’s when Liam takes in their audience. Simply put, the whole Pack is there. Malia, Scott, Stiles and Lydia have commanded the couch, in a terrifying rendition of concerned (and stuck-up) parents. Mason and Corey are squeezed in the loveseat, like the two horny teens Liam knows them to be. In front of them, Theo is fussing around the TV where he plugged his laptop. The big screen already displays the default wallpaper. Liam briefly wonders where the picture of the black human heart on the black background went, but there are more pressing matters at hand. 

“You invited the whole Pack?! What is wrong with you?”, he yelled.

Lydia shakes her head like she can’t take the noise. Coming from the chick who spends so much of her time screaming that she turned it into a fighting style, Liam thinks that’s rich…

“Liam”, Theo reasonably counters. “I spent time and effort on this. I feel I deserve some recognition.”

Liam is about to be very reasonable himself by jumping on him and punching his perfect nose into a pulp. But…

“That sounds fair”, his mother approves as she walks in from the kitchen, carrying a chair. She carefully sets it towards the TV in order to not impair anyone’s view.

“You invited my MOM? That’s it, you’re so dead, Raeken!”

“Guys, can you do this later? It’s getting late, here” a voice speaks from the computer.

“Is that… Jackson?” Liam asks so overwhelmed he forgets to be furious. For now.

“Hi Liam! Ethan went to make popcorn for us, but he says hi” Jackson’s voice confirms. 

Liam blocks the tremor in his fingers, desperate to hide his sudden worry. It just flicks his claws out. 

“Who… who else is on there?” he calls, expressionless. 

A long silence stretches in the room. And he glares at each and every one of them, daring them to answer him. Eventually another voice comes out of the speaker. Hayden was always the bravest – and the brashest – of them all.

“Hey Dunbar. What’s up?”

But ‘Dunbar’ ignores the greeting. He just turns to Theo, wide-eyed. Confused at the betrayal. Uncertain about the showdown. And so. Fucking. Mad.

“I hate you” he promises.

“And that’s a great introductory point to my first argument. Now, take a seat on the floor, Little Wolf – since you were late, all other seats are taken – and listen! You’re in for thirty exciting minutes of self-discovery.”


	2. Repeat A Lie Louder Yet!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Same rule.  
> Not saved.  
> Not proofread.  
> Not read at all, really.  
> But it seems to be working for now. 
> 
> (The RALLY principle doesn't actually exist, but I'm pretty sure it's nonetheless very often referenced in pop culture.)

Liam sits on the carpet. Not because Theo told him to but because he’s tired – and fuming – about being put on the spot and the center of attention. Of being on the spot of attention, if you will. 

Theo spreads his muscly arms and with a twirl of long fingers, he brings everyone’s focus back to him. The little attention whore. 

“Before we move on to my first slide, I want to ask this fine congregation gathered here on this beautiful…”

“Quit it” Malia quips behind Liam, and for a second, Liam actually believes one of his friends has his back. Couldn’t have been more wrong. “We all know you hate most of us.”

“Malia”, Scott warns lovingly before pressing a kiss on her cheek. Liam would barf…

“What?” she replies. “I said I wouldn’t kill him… and he breathes.”

There’s a weird inflexion to her voice and Liam turns around to see and there’s also something weird with her face and. Is she… cooing? Yep, his Alpha has the puppy heart eyes on. Some True Leader he is! 

“Malia’s right” Theo says, all magnanimous and shit – Liam can taste the puke in his mouth. “So here it is, suckers. And erm… Lady Jenna…”

It’s all for show is what it is. Theo has been calling Liam’s mom Lady Jenna since he first stepped foot in their house. He can pretend he just corrected himself to save his precious butt all he wants. Liam knows it’s just another of his schemes to praise his mother publicly. He’s half-offended because he’s not stupid, thank you very much. But he’s also half-glad for her. And that makes him mad. Again. But the hypocritical chimera…

“How many times have you ever heard Liam say he hates me?” he asks, overflowing with so much unacceptable confidence that Liam digs his claws in the carpet. 

“To your face? Or in general?” Mason prompts for clarification, looking for all intents and purposes like his interest has genuinely been picked. Traitor. All traitors. 

At the very least it seems to throw Theo off track if Liam can trust his raised eyebrow. (He can’t.)

“Well” the evil presenter says. “Let’s start with the times when he says it to me directly. But we’ll most definitely go back to that ‘I hate Theo Raeken’ streak of his later.”

His mouth stretches into a predatory grin. The TV projects shadows and colors on his perfectly aligned teeth and Liam finds it distracting. He’s about to offer to remove a few of those from his mouth – you know, helpfully – so nobody else’s attention would be diverted from that wonderful speech he prepared when Mason rudely interrupts his murderous plans. For the second time. Or is it Corey? They’re so fused at the mouth these days that Liam barely keeps track of whoever is actually spewing words. 

“That’s still a lot.”

Mason has the decency to wince after the admission. But it’s too little too late. Liam is in the market for a new best friend. Like… Scott. Scott could be his new best friend. He’s nice. And he wouldn’t ever talk smack about his beta. Especially in his presence – hello Mason! 

“I thought it was some sort of secret greeting slash handshake you guys had come up with” Liam’s ex-new best friend provides, all smiles and warmth and fucking rainbows. “Like you call him ‘Little Wolf’ and he replies ‘I hate you’ and that’s just how you talk.”

On the True Alpha of Obliviousness’s left, Stiles is barely containing his laughter.

“Scotty buddy, you’re so pure it’s overwhelming. I love you, man.”  
“I love you too” Scott says back, pink tinging his cheeks.   
“See?” Theo cuts, once more gathering all the attention to himself before hurling it back towards Liam. “That’s a healthy way of communicating between two friends.”

Liam prefers when he doesn’t share, thank you very much. Liam doesn’t need everyone staring at him to be comfortable. He’s not a needy drama queen. 

“But before I actually make my point…” Theo continues, unstoppable – Liam now considers bashing the fucker’s head to the nearest wall. Again, just to be civil. “…and because I know you won’t trust my word to be truthful…”

“No shit”, Stiles sasses behind Liam.

“… I documented it.”

With unnecessary flourish, Theo clicks “next” on his dreadful PowerPoint. The screen simply displays a blank slide, titled ‘Liam h_ _ _ _s Theo’. It takes a couple more seconds for the page to fully load and Liam gapes in horror at the embedded video, now in plain center. Liam doesn’t know what’s on the video but he’s ready to beg Theo not to… Theo presses play. Ensues three agonizingly long minutes of Liam watching himself tell (yell at, more like) Theo he hates him in various contexts and environments. It’s awful. If the werewolf’s being honest, even with the whole hidden cam vibe Theo painfully tried to give to the clips, the sequences are grainy, and ill-framed when the screen isn’t completely black. Considering the chimera probably filmed him secretly, Liam considers he could be excused except the montage is tacky as fuck. And he won’t resist that opportunity to snark, even mid-video. He inhales, ready to pour out his self-righteous anger when the next clip starts…

And here he is, naked as the day he was born, artfully framed above his navel, eyes closed, screaming at Theo who had apparently used up all the soap that day. “I hate you”.

“YOU MADE A TAPE OF ME IN THE SHOWER?” he shouts, gobsmacked, as the video ends.   
“I told you the investigation had been thorough, didn’t I?” Theo replies, feint surprise at Liam’s outburst etched in his features. “Don’t worry, though, I only kept that bit.”

“I don’t believe you” Liam shoots back instantly.

And the asshole. Just. Fucking. Smiles. 

“You will delete those images, Theo.” Jenna says sweetly from her seat. 

The whole room goes quiet. Liam shivers in spite of himself.

“Of course, Lady Jenna. I only really imported those ten seconds for editing. The whole clip has never left that tape, which I now entrust to you” Theo confirms as he deftly plucks said tape from his skinny jeans back pocket and deposits it Jenna’s waiting hands. He even pushes his luck and respectfully bows as he walks backwards back to the screen. Liam hates him and all his ‘ready-for-anything’ attitude. 

“Is no one going to stop this?”, Liam implores because the whole thing feels scripted and fake and reality TV material. And he’s starting to be very, very concerned about what’s coming next if Theo is capable of swaying his mother with that much ease. 

“Calm down, lemur”, Jenna soothes and Liam makes an extra effort to ignore Lydia while she condescendingly mouths ‘lemur’ back over his shoulder. “This is informative. I didn’t know you resented Theo this much.”

“He’s a jerk” Liam argues. He crosses his arms to gain some composure but soon realizes he accurately portrays a five-year-old version of him in the middle of a temper tantrum. But it’s not him, right. It can’t be him. It’s everyone else who has suddenly gone insane. Even the way his own mother speaks sounds twisted and laced with additional meaning. 

“I hate all of you” he groans because if he’s taken the part of a preschooler, he might as well own it. 

“And THAT” Theo comments as he snaps his fingers for douchebag effect. “… brings me to our next item. It’s considered common knowledge, and courtesy if you allow me the joke, for the line between love and hate to be thin…”

Jenna chuckles under her hand. Liam’s never felt so betrayed. He tunes out for a couple of seconds in favor of fustigating her with the sole power of his frown.

“… true for Liam.” Theo concludes. 

Oh no. That dick wouldn’t dare. But Theo’s nothing if not daring. 

“Now Hayden…”  
“Yes?” the voice of Liam’s ex-girlfriend answers from the computer’s speaker.  
“You’ve dated the subject of our talk today.”  
“That’s correct” Hayden says and Liam strains his hearing for any trace of anguish or discomfort in her tone. He finds none. He should have said something when she had confirmed to be on the Skype call, but so many incongruous events have been occurring in the past five minutes he has barely been able to keep track. What are you supposed to say to your first love who dumped your ass when she moved away?  
“Would you say Liam used to be in love with you?” Theo asks next, unshakeable. There’s most definitely a weird tension in the room, though.  
“Or so he said” Hayden replies, going for a joke that falls short.

Liam waits for the pain he’s so accustomed to every time Hayden is mentioned to engulf his heart but it doesn’t come. He’s moved on. Oh. That talk is informative, indeed. Not that he would ever admit it, especially not to the devil who planned it. 

“And how did Liam first bestow affections upon you?” Theo carries on.  
“Lots of passive-aggressiveness” Hayden answers truthfully. “Borderline stalkerish too, if we’re being honest.”  
“Could you be more specific?” Theo prompts one more time, collected on the surface, but the sparkles in his green eyes betray his exultation.   
“He punched me in the face.”

The jackass slowly turns back towards his live audience, slight nods of his chiseled jaw and pseudo-pensive expression on his pinched lips. 

“I will punch YOU in the face” Liam offers, standing up this time to emphasize how willing and serious he is about his proposition.

“Liam”, Jenna warns. “Maybe it’s best if you don’t dig yourself into a deeper hole…”

Stiles snorts. Liam will punch everyone in the face for just a second of tranquility. And support. He hates them all. Except he doesn’t and it’s starting to realize how that might be a problem, where fucking Raeken is concerned. 

“Liam”, Hayden says again. “I can’t stay. My sister and I are going to the mall. I just want to tell you… I want you to be happy. You’re someone worth sticking around for. You deserve people who will stick their neck out for you. And I’m not them.”

“Joke’s on you. Theo’s only out for himself” Liam bitterly replies.

“Do you really believe that?” Hayden questions, a soft inflexion in her tone that always sways him. “I gotta go. Take care, Liam.”

She hangs up. She hands up and Liam is having trouble breathing. It’s like she left him all over again. And this time in front of everyone he ever cared about. He closes his eyes to hide the golden circles in his irises, starts repeating his mantra but from the slur of his words, soon learns how ineffective it is. The Pack pretends not to notice, is giving him space, he knows. But he…

“You know”, Lydia states matter-of-factly. “I’ve always thought Theo and Liam had that Sterek UST from when they first met.”

Behind Liam, Stiles splutters – and probably flails, too. Liam just got kneed in his shoulder blade. It successfully derails the increase of his anxiety. 

“What?” the FBI student shrieks. “Lydia, light of my life, love of my, well, life, too, you can’t believe that. This is completely different. My relationship with Derek was never even the slightest bit romantic.”

There’s a grunt coming out from the computer’s speaker. And Liam feels his sideburns receding because …

“Derek?” he tries. “You’re on, too?”  
“Yes.”  
“Oh my God, Sourwolf!”, Stiles dramatically explains. “We’ve talked about this! You need to use your words.”

On the loveseat, Corey whispers ‘Sourwolf’ in Mason’s ear while glancing at Stiles, then ‘Little Wolf’ as his eyes sweep towards Theo. Huh. Liam guesses they are similar in a way… Except nope. Never. Bleh!

“Why didn’t you make your presence known before?” Stiles rants, now standing and pointing at the computer like the crazy young man he is.   
“I didn’t think it was useful before” Derek counters on the call.  
“Why is it useful now?” Stiles presses.

Another grunt. 

“Oh. My. God” Stiles sighs as he lets himself fall back in the couch.

This talk is SO informative.

“Hey” Scott whispers with zero discretion. Liam loves his Alpha, but smoothness definitely isn’t his best asset. “At least you know you’re attractive to gay guys.”

“Oh yeah, I see it”, Corey whole-heartedly agrees. And what?

Mason adds his own approval by emitting a clicking sound with his mouth. Ethan throws in his two cents with a “I’ve always seen it”. 

“I guess I saw it too. I might have felt threatened” Jackson reluctantly admits. 

Stiles looks about to pass out and Liam sees the fun of it now, especially when Scott adds: “Yeah you’re attractive, dude. It’s been obvious to me from the start.”

The beta knows without checking that the piercing blue made its stormy return in his eyes when he catches Theo smiling complicitly at him. It’s a private smile, one Theo only rarely graces him with. 

“Hey Liam”, he murmurs, unheard from everyone but Liam with Stiles exasperated huffing and their friends’ laughs surrounding them, “what a bitch, uh?”

He’s not mad at Hayden. He loves her. Probably always will. But sometimes it feels good not to take the high-road. Theo always understood that duality within Liam. It settles him.

“Yeah”, Liam agrees in the same hushed tone. “What a bitch.”

Even the claws he’s had planted in the carpet since the start of his awful display retracts back into blunt nails. Maybe the doesn’t hate Theo Raeken. He certainly doesn’t hate his friends. Maybe it will be okay.

“Perfect!” Theo exclaims with his dickwad voice. “We can now move on to phase 2!”

The whole room cheers.

Liam was wrong. He hates them all. And most of all, he hates Theo Raeken.


	3. And Now Call Heart Over Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come on, guys! Let's be real. The ANCHOR principle? That's pushing it.  
> But it was so... so... tempting. And it sounds nice, so it must be true.
> 
> Same rule again.   
> No editing, even though I had to save it because I had to reboot the laptop in between.  
> I also couldn't write it one go...
> 
> Be honest (that's what this insanity is about, right?), is it less funny because of it?

Liam blinks at the next slide. Aside from the giant flat icon at the center, the page is completely empty. No title, no caption. A 100% wordless point. Just the big dumb drawing of an anchor in glassy white over a black background. Wordless yet powerful. Over-the-top in a deliciously cocky manner. It’s so Theo Liam wants to scream. 

“Duh” Lydia says, boredom seeping in her tone.   
“Really?” Mason wonders.

Liam is so done with all of them. He turns to Theo, suddenly eager to hear his own twisted explanation for the newest finely-orchestrated non-sense, but the bastard keeps quiet. Pretty head slightly tilted, he is himself paying close attention to the Pack’s reactions.

“We raised you better than this” Stiles mutters disapprovingly. “I mean… You did a great job, Lady Jenna” he struggles before pushing through. “I meant… Jenna… Mrs Geyer.” He crosses his arms, sinks into the couch and sulks. “Parents love me”, he mumbles.

“I’m not even sure your dad likes you, Stilinski”, Jackson’s voice snarks from the speaker.   
“Shut up, Jax!”, Stiles shoots back. “I meant… Jackson… I meant, Whittemore. …Assface.”

Liam once more expects Theo to bring the discussion back to the main event: himself. But he doesn’t, keeps the open and expectant expression on his face. The fucker can’t even be trusted to humiliate Liam with a modicum of consistency. 

“What Stiles is trying to convey”, Scott interrupts before Stiles’ swearing becomes too awkward for the assembly. He stops then, turns towards his best friend. “What are you trying to convey, exactly?”

Liam can’t help himself from hanging his own head in despair. How can they still suck at this?

“Dude! Liam’s questionable choice in anchors. Theo’s not a reliable moral compass.” Stiles says, back to his usual exhaustingly animated self. 

“Anchors aren’t determined by virtue”, Derek says. “As I stated many many many times before, everything can be an anchor. A person, a memory, a feeling. Good or bad. It can be grief, it can be rage. It just has to be what keeps us human.”

“Theo. Human.” Stiles drawls towards the speaker, like a crazy person who talks to inanimate object. 

Is none of Liam’s friends at least going to question the statement? Because if no one does, then he’ll do it himself? And it won’t be a pretty…

“It’s a lie”, Malia seethes. Liam now sees Scott’s fingers around her knee, keeping her in place on the couch. Damn right, it’s a lie. “Everything he says is a lie. Or at least a twisted version of the truth. Nothing proves he’s actually Liam’s anchor.”

Thank you, Malia. Your mistrust and borderline psychotic tendencies might actually get them somewhere this time. 

“Well, there’s the fact that I was able to calm him down less than a minute ago”, Theo replies softly, like he’s been waiting for the conversation to take this particular turn. He has. Liam is so sure he has. Boy does he hat… is he annoyed by the chimera. “Or that he is being particularly subdued since the beginning of the presentation.”

“Yes, I wanted to ask about that”, Corey pipes up from the loveseat before trying – and failing – to entangle himself from Mason’s lips. Liam is never sitting there again. It was his favorite chair. 

“Yes”, Mason agrees, because apparently they share a brain now, on top of various bodily fluids. “I am surprised about the PowerPoint ordeal as well. What the hell?”

Congratulations, Mason! Liam just now reinstated him as best friend. Maybe even BFF, if he grovels a little bit for it. 

“I’ve seen you lose your shit for a lot less, Liam. Things I’ve said. And you’ve just remained seated since Theo started!” Mason continues.

He shouldn’t have. Mason’s out again. Can’t no one pick a side today? The right side – Liam’s?

“I’m actually curious about that too, lemur” Liam’s mom concurs. 

“Stop calling me lemur in front of my friends” the boy whines. Damn it! He’d been so good at keeping his mouth shut until now. He’s sure now that Theo will somehow use the opportunity to turn it around into a new reason why Liam loves him or something. It is actually his mother who drives it home.

“I know I’m new to all of this… all of this” she says. “But are you arguing whether Theo is Liam’s anchor – did I say it right? Anchor? Because I honestly thought that was the whole reason behind having Theo’s new … living arrangements. No offense, sweetie.”

“Mom!” Liam cries.

“What?” Jenna asks. “That’s what you made it sound like when you begged us to…”

“MOM!”

“Calm down, lemur” Theo placates, his backstabbing, knife-twisting, infuriating angelic smile illuminating his face. “I actually agree with you. Lady Jenna, this talk is all about sincerity and I’ve got to give this back to Liam: his begging for me to move in with you never had anything to do with anchors. Your son only did it out of goodness and purity in his heart.” 

Liam’s mum nods respectfully, like she accepts the compliment but doesn’t quite believe it either. Liam’s calling it. This affront all earned them a level 4 on Liam’s Scale of Betrayal. 

“I NEVER BEGGED ANYONE SO THAT THEO WOULD COME LIVE WITH ME!” he rectifies. Because that’s true. That’s not how things happened. Liam will help Theo pack his belongings right now, if they all need proof. Maybe he’ll even do it in the middle of night. Through the window. See who begs after that.

“You let him call you lemur?!”, Mason shouts over Liam. And nope, he has no right to be that affronted. Liam’s not the one in the wrong here. “I’ve known you for the past ten years and you won’t let me call you that.”

And that … that renders Liam speechless. Not because it’s true or whatever. Who cares about a stupid nickname anyways? But how is no one listening to him? Why are they hung up on all the wrong things?

“Actually” Jenna says – Liam closes his eyes because whatever’s going to come next will incriminate him even further, he knows. “He won’t even let David call him that. Remember how he tried years ago and you just glared at him. You were like, five… That was before your adorable pout morphed into the resting bitch face you’re gracing me with right now. Stop that right now, young man.”

This disaster has now reached level 5 on Lemur’s Scale of Betra… LIAM’S. LIAM’S SCALE. Darn it! 

“Now.”

Liam schools his face into his best version of a neutral expression. 

“So? Is Hellboy Kid Hulk’s anchor or not?”

A second of silence follows the disembodied question. Then the grave, creeping voice picks up again: 

“Hey Malia.”  
“Hey… Dad.”

Looks like someone else is battling Liam for the title of Worst Day Ever. Liam still believes he’s winning. By a couple thousand points.

“Go away, Peter. I told you I don’t want you to hijack my Skype calls.”  
“You love it, dear nephew, you love it.”

The voice fades away with the disappearing steps of heavy boots on a parquet floor. A new lull in their debate that Theo doesn’t leave alone. Three times he hasn’t let this moronic presentation die down. That’s how many times Liam will break his cute nose. He cracks his knuckles in anticipation. It might even be an intimidation technique at this point, who knows?

“Since I suppose Liam will refuse to shed some much needed light on this topic…” 

“Fuck you, Raeken!” Liam helpfully sheds. 

“Language, lemur”, Theo and Jenna admonish at the same time. Liam vibrates so much with rage he could phase out of his skin. Shed his human envelop like the werewolves in that Van Helsing movie. Would you look at all the shedding he’s doing today!

“I guess there’s another way to settle this delicate question” the bastard continues, unfazed. “Scott.”

Instantly, Liam subconsciously presses his back against Scott’s legs. From the sounds of the couch’s throw behind him, he knows Malia and Stiles have instinctively moved closer to their Alpha as well, effectively flanking him and shielding him from harm. Theo gives a pained look at the display but otherwise doesn’t comment on it. And seriously, what’s with everyone being so easily offended today? When they have zero right? When Theo himself is a breathing, shit-talking albeit good-looking menace?

“How do you feel about me? Honestly?” Theo dares to ask. “As an Alpha”, he specifies after a beat.

Scott frowns like he doesn’t really want to answer. For a second, he stops looking like the lovesick teen he seems to be most of the time. For a second, Liam sees in his eyes the fierceness of a surviving warrior, and the strength of a leader in the way he carries his shoulders. 

“Quit it with the weird questions!” the True Alpha stammers. “You make it sound so weird.”

Aaaaand it’s gone… Or not. So fricking flimsy, the lot of them. 

“Like you’re mine”, Scott eventually grows the balls to answer. “To protect and keep safe and around.”

“How?” Theo whispers.

“Like Peter through Derek” the werewolf answers, no sign of wonder or despise in his tone. An objective truth. “Like Ethan through Jackson.”

You’d think a True Alpha would learn the power to lie through the sheer force of his will. But nope! Especially not if it will save his first beta from third degree embarrassment. No! Let’s light Liam’s cheeks and ears on fire and watch it burn instead! 

Well, if he’s done for, he might as well scratch that match himself…

“Fine!”, he intervenes. “I don’t hate you. I care about you. And you’re my anchor. Happy now?”

“Yes, thank you”, the elusive chimera says. Except he doesn’t look relieved nor satisfied at all. Liam watches him gulp. “Thank you, Liam, as it is my belief that before establishing new principles, it is first mandatory to tear down some misconceptions. We are now ready to move on to the very core of this presentation…”

“LET ME PUNCH HIM” Liam screams as he launches himself towards his tormentor. 

His back soon hits the couch. Rather violently, Liam may add. He feels like physical abuse is worth adding to the list of his sufferings today. Somehow, Scott’s legs have slipped around his waist and are now above his shoulders, effectively encasing him and trapping him on the floor. He. Can’t. Move.

“And he was doing so well”, his mother laments, while the Pack silently invites Theo to resume his speech.

Lemur’s Scale of Betrayal breaks a new record.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So... What shall Theo do next? :-)


	4. Bully Liam Using Facts & Figures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We've all done it...  
> Here come the dubious explanations over seemingly relevant objective facts... a.k.a. the BLUFF principle.

“Alright, guys…”

“Call us ‘guys’ one MORE time”, Malia threatens through her fangs. Liam doesn’t know where the sentence ends but he knows he’ll help. He’s helpful like that. 

Scott is now actively restraining the both of them. And he’s not even breaking a sweat. There’s a constant growl buzzing through the room now. Liam refuses to spend time figuring out its provenance. 

“Alright, suckers” Theo amends and the growling sound kicks up a couple of decibels. “Let’s take some perspective before I add to my argumentation, okay? We just established that I’m Liam’s anchor. I just want to take this opportunity to emphasize the fact that it also means that my presence grounds him, that Liam genuinely wants to spend time around me. Like when he asked me to join him at the zoo and help draw the hunters away…”

“Did you ever think that’s because I don’t want anyone else here to see me at my worst?” Liam growls. Oh, that was him, then. Great. Fucking great.

“Exactly” Theo says, his smile so blinding that Liam’s traitorous chest forgets to produce the menacing rumble in favor of … fluttering!? Huh huh. No way.

On the loveseat, Mason shakes his head like he’s disappointed in Liam. LIKE HE IS DISAPPOINTED. IN LIAM. Is he fucking kidding? 

“But aside from the very good point Liam just made against his own team –” the pretentious douchebag carries on, proud of his awful sports metaphor. “point that I hope you will all take some time to reflect on at a later time – the purpose of my next slide is to build on this base and to prove to this assembly that Liam also enjoys my company.”

“Oh” Liam snaps. “And here I thought the purpose of the next slide was to make my life a living hell.”

“Two birds, lemur, two birds…”

Scott’s legs clench around his beta’s shoulders as Theo presses next… A very bland looking reporting slowly loads on the display. The slide is disgustingly formally designed. Theo obviously used a professional template. Which means…

“I won’t go into too much detail over each of these charts” he explains. “But don’t fret, the display is dynamic so I’ll automatically highlight relevant data while I…”

“Facts & Figures?” Liam interrupts, incredulous. “You’re trying to convince us with… with pie charts and histograms, that I like to spend time with you? With math?”

“I thought you liked pies and sticks” Theo says, mildly. “I made this version especially for you” he comments while he clicks again on the ‘Next’ button. 

The following slide is exactly the same. Except Theo very grossly photoshopped pictures of pies and lacrosse sticks over the graphs. Math poorly disguised as things Liam likes… To prove that Liam seeks Theo’s presence… The prospect is even more ridiculous…

Theo must have clicked again because all the pictures start synchronously jiggling left and right while a flute plays off-key from the speaker. The charade is awful. Theo missed from a mile large this time. And Liam fails to prevent the bubbling laugh from escaping his lips. 

“Really?” he hiccups between bouts of laughter. “That’s how you will persuade them that being around you can be a good time for anyone?” he taunts.

He’s fully laughing now and… Crap. His whole body is against him today, apparently. Well, fuck everything! Liam will have his revenge in the form of ice-cream.

Elated, the tricky asshole picks up right where he’d left off. Liam’s hilarity soon dies off.

“As I was saying, the relevant data will be automatically highlighted as I proceed with my demonstration. As you can see, this study relays the findings of the variations of Liam’s moods based on various stimuli.”

“WHAT?”

“How do we even know your data is legit? You could have forged the whole thing, for all we know” Stiles guesses, very satisfied with his intervention. Finally! FINALLY! Someone to dismount the whole presentation. About time, if you ask Liam. 

Another sigh rises from the loveseat. Mason’s eyes are shut, like the situation causes him physical pain. Corey is mutely cooing in his neck, failing to comfort him. Liam would be very interested to understand what in this situation could possibly be painful for Mason. He’s not the one who’s stuck against a couch between Scott’s hairy legs. He’s not the one whose heart is being dissected and exposed for all his friends to discuss. 

“It’s legit” Liam’s ex-BFF eventually masters the courage to say. “I cross-referenced all the inputs. I actually recorded most of it. I’m sorry, Liam. He picked the topic as our sociology project. I thought it was a good idea at the time.” Mason winces, exhales once more and plows on. Liam’s dignity is already trampled. Might as well finish him, right? “I also double-checked all the results. He makes you happy, dude.” 

Which, Liam guesses, explains why Mason hasn’t been on the right page – Liam’s page – since Theo started this whole mess… except it DOESN’T. What the fuck, Mason? The Scale of Betrayal just became logarithmic! Liam can do math, too. (He can’t to save his life; Theo actually explained the whole logarithm chapter to him less than two weeks ago.)

“WHAAAAT?”

“Good question, Liam!” Theo congratulates. “Poorly-worded, but it gets the idea across.”

“I want to murder you so bad”, Liam grins at him, firmly in control of his baby blue eyes and slowly letting his canines licking down his lower lip and chin. Theo grins back. He’s so visibly entertained, and Liam has to stamp violently all over the butterflies going crazy in his stomach. 

“So what, indeed? On this first pie chart, you’ll find the relative proportions of the capacities of the Pack members to trigger Liam’s laugh after they uttered a joke. I believe you can all draw conclusions from this one on your own.”

“Why am I not on it, fucktard?” Stiles complains while Liam stares dumbfounded at the 62% neatly written under Theo’s first name. 

The werewolf would tear off his own arm rather than admitting he expected Theo’s to predominate the quadrant. But this… he’s crushing his competition. Not that there’s a competition to gain Liam’s favors or anything… No. That would be…

“You are!” Theo cheerfully responds. “You’re the puke green sliver line right here…” he says as he extends his middle finger towards the screen.

“Language, children – oral and non-oral” Jenna distantly reprimands from her chair as she peers at the results. 

“I rate less than Derek?” Stiles wails. “How do I rate less than Derek?”

“I’m funny.” Derek’s voice offers from the computer’s speaker. Liam feels a timid half-smile tugging at the corner his mouth.

So what? Theo makes him laugh. It’s not a big deal. He won’t make a fuss about it. 

“Interestingly enough, the histogram on the right side of the slide presents, per Pack member, Liam’s propension to laugh to their jokes.” Theo resumes. “Except, on each column, you’ll find two figures: the lower ones being the times when I’m not around and the higher ones…”

“As you can see” Mason intones – seriously, Mason? “there’s a significant delta in Liam’s responses in regard to these two environments. Of course, one might assert that Theo and Liam simply spend a lot more time together than they do apart and it would be enough to skew the results of this chart in favor of Theo’s… theory.”

“Which is why” Theo echoes. They have rehearsed this. There’s no way they could be this good – it pains Liam to admit it – without preparation… Which means… Mason has rehearsed Liam’s demise with his archenemy. “we have added another column, on the far right side, of this graph: it’s our control indicator, the proportion of time Liam actually spent without me during the times we recorded information, which rounds to an even 50/50.”

“And yet, Liam laughs twice or in some occurrences, thrice as much when Theo is present than when he is not, no matter who made the original joke.”  
They’re dead. They’re so dead and they don’t even know it. Liam thinks it’s time they knew. Maybe they’d stop talking and digging his own grave. Dead people don’t dig. They’re supposed to crawl out, dammit.

“The conclusions are even more compelling if we focus on smiles instead of laughs” Theo says next. Can they just hit him with a shovel already?

Liam watches the graphs move on their own on the screen. Theo’s green color has now conquered 81% of the pie chart and the histogram pretends he smiles five to ten times more with Theo than without, especially to people who usually don’t make him laugh. That stick chart fricking LIES. But all of these numbers are math and Liam’s powerless against it, especially when it’s specifically out to get him. So he keeps quiet. Tries to take it all in. And actively plans his closest friends’ brutal death. 

“Now we thought we would just try to see how Liam’s behavior evolved over time. We didn’t expect much, to be honest. But this is what we found” Mason says with a flourish he obviously copied from Theo. He successfully mastered the douche effect. Good job! “On this last plot chart, you’ll find our two measures, per day: number of Liam’s laughs – LL – and number of Liam’s smiles – LS, notwithstanding Theo’s presence around him. As you can see, the tendency is rather flat over the first month of our project or so.”

“What’s the one-week-long dip around the third week?” Lydia inquires, her tone making it clear she has already finished to study the whole graph. The whole boredom is getting old, in Liam’s opinion.

“I was sick with the flu” Theo answers matter-of-factly. “But more importantly, there’s an obvious discontinuity in the plot lines right around… this date, that we called ‘L Day’.”

“Please tell me it’s not ‘Love Day’.”Liam groans. Why can’t this whole thing be over already?

“It’s not ‘Love Day’, Liam” Theo confirms. “It’s… ‘Lemur Day’!”

“Yeah” Mason agrees – he must have been tired of being Liam’s friend or something. Or, you know, alive. “We preserved your anonymity and called the whole study ‘The Lemur Project’.”

Of fucking course!

“And the graph clearly proves that Liam gets significantly happier – or, at least, giddier - after ‘Lemur Day’.”

“Oh”, Liam’s mother says. She stands up, now done with her scrutiny of the slide. “I wasn’t sure because the actual dates are so small on the screen but… ‘Lemur Day’ is just the day before Theo moved in…”

“Mason!” Liam interjects through his teeth. “Out! To my room! NOW!”

Mason wordlessly gets up and leaves the room, his face blank with apprehension. Serves him right. Scott frees Liam and allows him to get up as well. The beta feels their stare in his back as he follows Mason out of the living-room.

He still hears Theo’s gravelly voice while he climbs up the stairs.

“Don’t worry, folks! This five-minute-long break is actually accounted for. We will resume our presentation shortly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Liam's not winning, is he?


	5. Bargain, Reason, Explain, Argue, ... Kneel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well. Now's our BREAK.  
> Maybe it's also a break from the fun?  
> (I hope you'll still enjoy this chapter.)
> 
> Let's be honest (like everyone but Liam in this fic): it's a filler.  
> But I felt it was important to give Liam an outlet... We will build on this for the next chapter.
> 
> Have fun!

Liam has used all twenty-three steps he gracefully stamped on on his way to his bedroom to make up his mind. If he’s about to confront his so-called best friend about his latest dick moves, he knows he needs to be prepared, to explain the problem with poise, rationality and concision. There’ll be no shit talking about being a third wheel since Corey joined the picture and no self-righteous anger about Mason not having his back for the past fourteen minutes. No, this is about Mason. Associating with Theo. To study him. Like he’s some sort of lemu… MONKEY in a lab. Liam slams the door behind him once they entered the room, the noise sending shudders down the human’s spine. 

Now it’s time for Liam to use his carefully crafted words of indignation to expose the issue in objective and non-arguable terms. It’s. Going. Down.

“What the fuck, Mason?”

Okay, so maybe a couple hundred stairs would have been necessary for the literary version of it to be fully formed. But Mase will get it. He’s Liam’s best friend! Or at the very least he was half an hour ago.

“I’m sorry, Liam. I told you I’m sorry. I didn’t know he was going to use our results for this weird PowerPoint.”

A heartfelt apology would be the right way to go about their current predicament. Except Liam’s absolutely pissed. And it comes far too soon in this conversation. 

“Forget the damn PowerPoint, Mase! That’s on him. You studying me. For three months. Without telling me. That’s on you.”

Something nags at the back of the werewolf’s mind. An idea begging to make itself known. It evades him. 

“It’s a sociology project. We had to pick a human subject. Telling you about it would have compromised the objectivity of our analysis”, Mason lamely defends.

“Could have picked Corey.”

Liam crosses his arms. He knows he’s getting off topic. Fuck this!

“No. I tell Corey everything.”

“I’m supposed to be your best friend” Liam states, because Mason seemingly needs the reminder.

“You are.”

“You’re supposed to tell ME everything” Liam scants, driving the point home.

“You don’t tell ME everything, Liam” Mason counters.

“I told you I got bitten and turned into a werewolf!”

“Actually… Theo did” Mason sasses to close the argument.

The silence comes back to the room, only softened by their respirations. They, too, quieten after a while.

“Why didn’t you tell me once the study was over?” Liam inquires again.

Mason squirms.

“MASE!” Liam roars but he’s not mad yet, it’s just to get him to speak.

“I’ve had my doubts” the human finally admits.

“… about…” Liam prods.

“…feelings…” Mason murmurs. “… that might… be… had… by you.”

He’s got to be fucking kidding!

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” Liam sighs as he walks backwards until he leans back on the door.

“Why are you so angry, Liam?” Mason asks.

“Fuck you!” Because seriously? Is Mason real right now?

“You know what I mean. Don’t play dumb! Why is this making you so angry?” Mason pushes.

Liam extends his arms around him with his best “look around” grimace. Who wouldn’t be angry?

“Liam… Are you in love with Scott?”

What? Liam scoffs the thought away. That’s the weirdest thing he’s heard today, by far, and that’s saying something. He even snickers for good measure before focusing his blue gaze back at this friend.

“See” Mason quips. “That’s the normal reaction to any stupid allegation. But for each argument Theo makes, you get angrier.”

That effectively shuts Liam up. Mason gets crazier by the second. Corey must have sucked his brains through his mouth.

“You wanna get angry?” Mason carries on, stupidly believing he got the higher ground or some shit. He’s in for a surprise. “Get angry! But go to the bottom of that anger, figure out what’s causing it so we can all go home.”

The thing most people don’t get with Liam’s anger is that it works in stages. He’s bitchy on a good day and it works out, because he’s intimidating and it drives most people away. The idiots who don’t scamper off occasionally gnaw at him until he gets grumpy… To his dismay, grumpy Liam is cute. He’s heard the word ‘adorable’ thrown his way a handful of times but that’s not something he’s ready to delve into. Eventually the grumpiness volcano erupts into a fully blown IED explosion. At that point, he’s downright scary, a force of nature set to destroy anything on his path. And then there’s the final stage…

“You know what?” Liam seethes. “I’d rather go back downstairs and listen to the end of this shit show rather than to remain here and be unfairly questioned by someone who calls himself my friend.”

The icy cold, deadly sharp, concentrated and unadulterated rage. The least impressive one yet the most damaging form of his anger prowls and preys on weaknesses, has him all ears and eyes wide open for any word, any sign, any gesture he can forge into a weapon of mass destruction. Oh yeah! That kid’s strong when he’s angry. And right now, the kid is off to the living-room, fully equipped to meet his fate. And he doesn’t give a fuck if he leaves a disgruntled Mason in the remnants of their friendship behind.

A weird vibe lingers amongst the participants when Liam returns to the auditorium – previously known as his living-room. Corey has abandoned the loveseat to steal Liam’s spot on the carpet, but the werewolf keeps his word: that loveseat is now and forever a wasteland, as far as Liam’s concerned. He doesn’t stab his promises nor his friends in the back. So he ignores the peace offering and finds a new spot on the floor, just in front of his mother. He doesn’t trust her more than he does any of them at the moment, but at the very least, she won’t try and block him if he needs to examine Theo’s face from up close. With his fist. Four times. 

After a while, Mason quietly joins them and sits on the floor, on Corey’s other side. 

“Where were we?” Theo asks after a beat, completely unabashed by the overwhelming tension.

“In Mason’s words: ‘you make me happy, dude’. What’s next?” Liam replies, all the while pulling his own trademark unimpressed face. Hopefully the jerk still understands sarcasm.

Judging by his frown, he does. Liam got this. Time to flip those proverbial tables!

“Right…” Theo drawls. “What’s next? Well, while we could argue that physical attraction is not a mandatory prerequisite for romantic feelings, our Liam here happens to be a highly sexual being.”

Liam is a what now? From the corner of his vision he spots the whole Pack slightly nodding… He refuses to pay attention and let it undermine him. Liam got this. HE GOT THIS!

“So in the next part of our expose, we’ll review various elements and discuss Liam’s physical attraction towards my… physique.”

Liam so don’t got this…


	6. Dunbar, Irritated, Cannot Keep Secrets!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well... I got no excuse for that title.
> 
> I actually had to write this chapter in 3 times.
> 
> Hopefully we're back to some fun. And some Theo.
> 
> We're getting to a close. 
> 
> These notes are random and pointless. I just like talking to you.

“Let’s start soft,” Theo proposes and Liam snorts. Because he’s 17 and not above a theoretical dick joke. And because he’s out to kill this presentation while it’s still time. Somehow the bastard posing as his roommate finds a way to make Liam’s pun about him, too, and he has the nerve to send a complicit smile towards the beta. As if the joke had been planned all along. Liam hates him (he doesn’t but they’ve been over that already). 

“The next slide…,” the asshole says while he presses next on the computer, “… presents a disarranged patchwork of eye pictures, designed to be a representative subset of the population.”

Liam glares at the slide. The wall of eyes challenges him to better hide his emotions in the corners of his heart. More gazes judging him for being in love with Theo. But the werewolf is certainly not backing down from THAT stare-down contest. He’s not backing down from anything now.

“As you can see, each photo was given a random number, from 1 to 48…”, the wicked chimera continues. 

“… And what?” Liam interrupts, hoping to derail the presenter. “I pick the one I like best? Am I supposed to pick number 9 and be called out when you reveal it’s your eye? Everyone here knows I like stormy grey eyes – they’re deep and mysterious, okay? – and yours is the only grey one on that fucking board!”

Behind him, his mother coughs.

“On that ridiculous board” the son dutifully corrects but he has the unnerving feeling the cough wasn’t about his poor choice of words. 

A vague silence fills the room. The jerk clears his throat, overplaying the awkwardness so much it becomes awkward to watch him.

“Alright, Little Wolf” he amenably agrees. “Let’s set aside the fact that it took you less than one point seven seconds to spot the only grey eye in that board AND to identify it as mine, even though it’s on the bottom right side of the screen and that most, if not all, eye-tracking studies have proven this zone to be the last the human eye gives attention to when stimulated with a randomized image.”

“I will randomize your face” the werewolf off-comments.

On his left, Liam catches the unsubtle whisper of Mason’s astonishment: “So his mother calls him ‘lemur’; Theo calls him ‘wolf’. And I’m just supposed to call him ‘Liam’?”

“This again, Mason?” Liam shots back, exceeded. 

“You know what?” Theo goes on and on and on like he has nine lives Liam can take off of him. “Let’s say I cheated. Let’s admit I drew Liam’s attention to that specific picture with Liam’s jersey number and let’s pretend eyes are that easily recognizable…”

“You did and they are” the beta assures, crossing his arms but even he is not convinced this time – he’s even slightly worried by Theo’s sudden honesty.

“So, on the next sample board...” Theo intones as he presses next.

“Are you kidding me?” Liam interrupts once more, vindicated. He makes a wide movement with his extended arm to encompass their Pack. “Everyone here can tell all these pictures are of YOUR lips. You just changed the angle and the contrast and the color.”

“Oh, Lemur…” his mother sighs above him.

“Zero point four seconds” the dickwad announces, seemingly genuinely impressed this time.

Another pregnant pause stagnates over the presentation. Looks like Liam can’t even shut this hell down, no matter how hard he tries. Theo has thought of everything. Unless…

“So what?” he justifies. “What does this prove? I know what Theo’s eyes and lips look like? I can spot them in the crowd? I literally live with him. His dumb face is the first thing I see in the morning, the last thing before I go to bed. We… we share a bathroom. We brush our teeth at the same time. Of course I know what his lips look like.”

The dick looks dismayed for a moment. But Liam knows him too well. Theo clearly had anticipated the counter-argument. 

“Let’s steer away from visual cues, then, shall we?” the chimera answers, before pressing the right arrow key on the computer’s keyboard. 

A slide titled “Words, words, words” appears on the TV screen, composed of two tag clouds. On the left one, Liam reads, written in red, what mostly seems to be swear words; the right word cloud is in shades of green and contains adjectives. 

“In red,” Theo sets to explain, “the words Liam uses to talk TO me directly: they provide information on his primary and conscious form of communication. To name a few: bastard, dickwad, jerk, devil, asshole, et cetera.”

In the room, everyone nods each time Theo lists a new word. The beta wolf doesn’t know whether they agree with Liam’s terms of choice or they are simply confirming Theo’s declaration, but he’ll take it. If it’s the only time his Pack will support him today, he’ll make it count. 

“In green,” Theo states now, “the words he uses to talk ABOUT me indirectly: they provide information on his subconscious thoughts and feelings. To name a few: deep, perfect, perfectly, long, good-looking, gravelly, deliciously, cute, proud, pretty, and so on.”

“Wow!” Scott comments, but Liam ignores it in favor of destroying Theo’s newest argument.

“You can make anyone say anything by presenting a fraction of their public appearances. Actually, it’s been used many in the history of…” he starts. 

The whole Pack groans.

“What? You’re willing to listen to Theo ranting about bullshit but when the topic switches to an actual...”

“But Liam’s point stands,” Stiles rudely cuts him off. Liam supposes he can let the interruption slide in favor of capitalizing on all the sudden support he’s getting. 

“Exactly,” he says, triumphant. “These prove nothing.”

“Fine” the chimera mutters.

And he then proceeds to grab the hem of his shirt and to pull it above his navel and to…

“WAIT!” Liam yells. “Please tell me you’re not going to remove your shirt in front of everyone. Please, Theo! Please don’t do it.”

Theo freezes, his hand still clutching the fabric of his pale blue shirt. Liam detects a mix of hesitation and expectation in his features, as if he’s giving his victim a chance… that apparently, Liam failed to grab: a smirk soon stretches Theo’s very recognizable lips once more.

“Okay, Liam, okay” he promises. “I won’t take off my shirt.”

The next second he has released the garment, swept his fingers below his waist, grabbed his jeans by the front pockets, pulled front and up… and suddenly, in a smooth, rapid, step and a loud scratching sound, Theo Raeken stands, in the middle of Liam’s living-room, clad in a pale blue shirt and black boxers. He lets the jeans fall to the floor with a totally unnecessary twirl of his wrists.

In the audience, several things happen at once. Corey chokes on his spit. Mason hits his boyfriend on the back of the head. Lydia wolf-whistles – which Liam would think remains ironic, considering, but his attention is otherwise occupied. Jackson applauds, while Theo extensively thanks him for the props: they then embark on a wild discussion about the model of stripper pants Theo picked. And Liam… well, Liam…

Liam is curious, okay. For all his bravado and exuded confidence, Theo has been nothing but extremely modest since he moved in with the Geyers. The beta may have caught a glimpse of his back, once, when the chimera had swiftly exited their shared bathroom, a towel set high around his waist. But this is the first time Liam gets to observe the jerk face’s long, muscular legs, without his pants on. Liam’s gaze sidles up his thighs. They’re… They…

Theo’s flexing. Theo’s flexing. Which means the asshole knows where Liam’s attention currently floats at. And of course, he’s doing it on purpose. Liam diverts his eyes. But his thoughts refuse to bulge. His inspective glance was so close to black fabric…

The chimera clears his throat. 

“With Liam’s current reaction and the obvious smell of arousal in the air, do I really need to drive the point home?” he asks.

“It’s shock and embarrassment, and the arousal could come from literally anyone in this room – except Mom,” Liam answers, weakly.

“It’s lust and want, and the arousal clearly comes from you. As you so helpfully specified earlier, I live with you,” Theo counters.

“And I have eyes, Liam,” Jenna adds. Liam forces the taste of vomit back down his esophagus. And he doesn’t dwell on the flaring jealousy competing with puke to escape his stomach. 

“Just admit it already, Liam,” Theo threatens, a pleased and slightly manic glint in his grey eyes. It’s almost as if he WANTS Liam to keep denying.

“Never!” Liam states.

“Great! Last resort, then,” the dick gleefully announces. “We’re going to dissect Liam’s porn history and – I apologize in advance, Lady Jenna…”

“No worries,” Liam’s mother amiably says. “I live with two teenage boys. Sometimes, three,” she has the nerve to chuckle. “I know the drill.”

Liam cannot believe his ears.

“Thank you for your understanding – We will this dissect Liam’s porn history and while we will keep it PG, we will respectfully compare the most distinctive traits of Liam’s favorite models with mine,” Theo completes.

“We will NOT,” Liam shouts. “SERIOUSLY?”

“Well, it’s for science,” Lydia very reasonably and condescendingly asserts. 

“You can’t anyway,” Liam snarks – there’s no point in denying anyways. “That folder is password-protected.”

“Actually…” Stiles’ nasal voice drawls from the couch.

“What now?” the beta groans. 

Stiles rapidly switches to justification mode: “Theo asked for help hacking computer passwords and passcodes a couple of weeks ago. And he’s been helping the Pack a lot. So maybe teaching him skills would help us in the future. Sure, I thought it could be used to nefarious purposes – even, against us. But since Theo has never shied away from resorting to kidnapping, torture and murder before, it made sense to think that, even in the worst-case scenario, it would still be an improvement. I lacked perspective and for that, I’m sorry, Liam.”

Liam wants to be mad at Stiles. He truly does. But… the logic stands. He is still taking in all that new information when the attractive, and now, half-naked, presenter reprises: “Glad we covered the ‘how’. Now let’s move back to the ‘what’, namely Liam’s porn collection, and the ‘why’, that is to say, proving he wants my body.”

And this is where Liam draws the line. There are things a seventeen-year-old boy isn’t ready to share with his mother, even if they are as close as his mum and he are. He’s on his feet in one quick jump.

“Stop! Stop! Fine. I’ll admit it,” he says, loud and clear, sarcasm and reluctance etched in his intonation. Maybe if he overplays it, he can manage to get out of this sticky situation with his honor unscathed.”

“You admit… what?” Theo prompts.

“I want your body,” Liam states, perfectly neutral, eyebrows raised in a challenging manner. He nailed it. It neither is an affirmation or a denial. Theo cannot do anything with his statement. Finally his time well-spent with Theo pays off.

“Yeah you do,” Theo assures while he jiggles his waist in a victory dance while Liam’s eyes apparently find the examination of the carpet fascinating. “Ethan?”

“Yes,” Ethan’s voice replies from the computer’s speaker. “I heard it loud and clear, as well as Liam’s heart. It’s not a lie. 100%, unadulterated truth.”

“Well, this was fun,” Theo says before profusely thanking Ethan for his assistance. “There you have it,” he concludes as Liam sits back, speechless. And red as a raspberry. He had forgotten about Ethan.

Now… everyone knows he finds Theo attractive. Now Theo knows. 

“Caring, trust, happiness, attraction,” the boy intones, unstoppable with his latest victory. Liam never had a chance to win this battle, did he? Theo will leave nothing of him by the end of the presentation. “One could argue those are the solid base of a long-standing relationship.”

“Liam...” a small, hushed voice on Liam’s left.

Shame and embarrassment and fright roll in waves in the werewolf’s guts. Will it make their cohabitation awkward now?

“But another could argue that these four do not love make,” Theo keeps on. “The one we love makes us feel special. The one we love is special. And it shows in every action, every word, every look…”

“Liam…” the voice insists.

And if Theo is right about Liam lusting for him, what else is he right about? And why would he humiliate him in front of his Pack? Is this Theo’s way to tell Liam he’s not interested? To very clearly tell him to back off?

“Liam!” Corey calls again while tugging on his shirt’s sleeve.

“What, Corey, what?” Liam asks as he turns around to face his friend. He frowns as he takes in the boy’s disgruntled and anguished face. 

Of course, it’s just the moment Theo chooses to call: “Corey, you’re up!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you believe all the words in the tag clouds were actual words Liam used to describe Theo in this very fic? Theo's got mad mad skills...


	7. Pics Or Items Settle Everything!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're now down to the P.O.I.S.E principle.
> 
> I'm not too sure about this chapter. I had to edit it. First version was more angsty than funny. This one's kind of an in-between. I mean... Liam's taken a lot of emotional blows... but it's no excuse, other writers would have made it hilarious. But, here we are. 
> 
> I wasn't sure whether I was ever going to be able to post it. Then I remembered I had committed to write this fast, without edits nor fears... and it was time, because I missed some people in my life and I wanted to let them know. <3
> 
> Also, Tara, even if this fic is already gifted, I want to dedicate this chapter to you. Somehow it was the hardest to write (the last two will be easier), maybe somehow you knew it. Anyways... you know what you did! Thank you for doing it!

Face paler than usual and fingers slightly shaking, Corey leaves his seat on the carpet and gets up. He joins the object of Liam’s now obvious desires on the other side of TV. The beta is still mad, maybe even furious, but he just doesn’t have enough in him left to yell at Corey. It may take him longer than the others to recognize a lost fight, but he still stops when he figures out he’s overwhelmed. Liam glances at Mason, but his best friend looks equally intrigued. Serves him right, the traitor. How does he like it, when people he thought he could trust suddenly turn on him? 

In front of them, the were-chameleon inhales. He starts mumbling.

“Af-after the Anuk-Ite… I j-just got tired o-of-of being useless,” he says and his voice grows stronger as he goes on. “A sneak attack is only as useful as the force of the attacker. And what good is a reckon mission if the spy is constantly betrayed by his heartbeat? Our enemies most of the time have enhanced hearing. I wanted to be able to be invisible to them, too.”

Corey’s gaze fixates on Liam, then, and the werewolf squirms in spite of himself. What does that even have to do with them? Liam reports his attention to Theo, expecting him to interrupt his friend any second now, to take the control of the narrative back. But the chimera doesn’t: he patiently looks at Corey, with something akin to pride in his (stormy, as previously established) grey eyes. Liam didn’t know Theo could look at other people this way. He doesn’t like this new discovery at all. 

“I went to Theo, of course,” Corey continues. 

Of course, of fucking course. Congrats, Corey! It makes no fucking sense at all. 

“He’s good at controlling his heartbeat, chemosignals and stuff.”

Except that. Right. Fuck.

“And so, I asked him to teach me how to do the same?” the boy ends with a question in a typical Corey fashion. 

That’s great, really, that’s super fucking great. But Liam still doesn’t know what that heart-warming story has to do with him. And Theo. And him and Theo. And not to be selfish or anything, but he kind of needs to know, now, because he’s not sure how much more of this his own heart can take. The beta spares a look at Theo again, but the dickwad still won’t pay him any attention. It’s so unfair…

“It was Theo’s idea that I should start taking pictures,” Corey resumes, with Theo’s unwavering support – Liam could kill him, with his stupid supportive smile. “Theo and I would meet every other day. He would tell me when he’d notice my presence around him, and I would show him pictures I’d taken… evidence of moments I’d been around him without him noticing.”

“He got the hang of it faster than any of the Dread Doctors’ students ever did,” Theo believes it useful to add, proud father voice and shit. And who would have thought? Theo’s confidence is even more annoying when it’s about other people. Good to know!

Corey blushes but doesn’t comment. Instead he starts stuttering again. 

“A-and well, I-I-I… B-b-because he spends a lot of time with Li-l-liam, I… took pictures of the time when they’re… t-to-together. Not together together. Just… j-just… to-together. Y-yeah.”

And he promptly goes back to his place on the floor, curling himself around Mason for comfort, as far away from Liam as possible. The beta isn’t that scary, is it? But he also thinks, deep down, Corey’s right to be scared… He’ll show them all.

“Thank you, Corey!” Theo congratulates, cheerfully. “And great job for figuring it out, though only a few mere seconds before I was to mention them myself in the course of this presentation. Dear audience, for your utmost viewing pleasure, I have several copies of these shots. You can look at them and pass them along as we discuss the material.”

And the douchebag goes on to produce printed pictures he starts distributing around while Liam stares a hole in his pretty face. His mouth is probably gaping at this point, but he is too stunned to be pissed about that, too. There are whispers and sideways look around him – fuck his friends, fuck his Pack, seriously, treating him like he’s not there and yet still about to blow up – and somehow, very quickly, several copies of the shots end up in his lap. Liam examines them for a while, in complete silence. He doesn’t even know whether Theo is talking above him. He just looks at his face on the pictures, at his posture, at the chimera’s… everything. But those don’t mean anything, right? They don’t.

The prints are handed without context, without highlight, without explanation. But they’re incriminating all the same. Liam discovers how his body is always slightly turned towards Theo, an openness that shows trust and attention in spite of himself. For the first time in months, he notices how close he is standing to Theo for no reason at all, and how quick he is to catch his wrist to pull him along, even when it’s clear the chimera is already following him. Mostly, he decrypts in his eyes a mix of awe and trust, of longing and hesitance. He looks at them and stares at them and closes his eyes and gazes again. But they all share the same truth… But that truth isn’t love. It cannot be. That’s not… that’s not how someone who’s in love looks at… at the other one. Liam’s pretty sure he has pictures of himself making the same eyes at donuts and – fuck, that doesn’t help his case, does it? 

“Well,” Theo says. “Since we’re looking at pictures, I thought you’d be entertained with this board.” The only board Liam would be entertained with is one he could use to beat the shit out of him. Because he is so not in love.

With a flourish and a fucking unnecessary flex of his naked thighs, he presses the right arrow on his keyboard and the next slide appears on the TV. It’s titled “Let’s face it!” and displays a line of 7 small pictures… all of Liam. The beta doesn’t know what to think anymore. Aside from the fact that he is. Not. In love. With Theo. Fucking. Fricking. Fracking. Raeken.

“I would like to thank Lady Jenna for this part; she provided most of the pictures.” the boy adds, and Liam’s mother of traitors bows her head. Liam doesn’t even know if he feels betrayed at this point. He just knows that’s not how love feels like, is all.

“So, what are we looking at, Lady Jenna?” the chimera plows on, sounding for all intents and purposes like he’s on some kind of intellectual talk-show about house appliances on sales… in his underwear. It’s hot in a way Liam refuses to spend time on. And maddening in a way he decides he has plenty of time to process.

“The first picture was taken when Liam was 4,” his mum explains and there’s a couple of ‘aww’s around the living-room slash auditorium, because, why not, at this point. “It’s kind of obvious if you look at the chocolate smears around his mouth, but he was trying to explain that our dog had found the cookie jar.” She giggles. “We didn’t own a dog.”

Liam keeps his head bowed. It’s starting to be too much. And the pictures in his lap are burning holes in his legs. Whatever he’s feeling right now, he knows his face will give it away… (It’s still not love.)

“He was denying the obvious fact,” Theo clarifies for an imaginary camera – isn’t it time for the commercial break, Liam figures they’re all ready for that –, “that he’d eaten all the cookies. The second picture was taken in a similar happenstance. But the third picture…”

“It was taken the day I told Liam I was moving away,” a voice rises from the computer.

“Hayden?” the beta wonders, puzzled. “I thought you’d hung up… I thought… I thought…”

“Yeah,” she drawls. “I lied. I really wanted to give you some privacy? I mean… I thought it’d be easier for you to figure things out if I wasn’t around. But I also really really need to know how things pan out. And…”

She doesn’t apologize, because Hayden Romero never apologized for anything – and that’s how Liam loved her anyways. And now. Well now, that’s how he hates her, too, apparently. See? Liam knows plenty about love. And that’s absolutely, resolutely, indisputably how he feels right now.

“I took the photo myself at dinner,” Jenna continues, suddenly subdued. “Right before he left the house to tell you he wanted to try long-distance. My poor Lemur was trying so hard to believe it’d work out.”

Liam’s ex has the decency to shut the hell up. How is she back in the call anyway? What does it mean that she had never left?

“And each picture was taken in a resembling situation, I’ll ask you to take my word for it.” Theo off-comments. “If you compare Liam’s facial expression on this series, you can obviously notice his grin is cracked by a handful of tells when Lemur is in sweet, sweet denial.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Lydia cuts to the chase. “What’s the last picture, then?”

“The last picture,” the chimera Liam ISN’T IN LOVE WITH answers gleefully as the beta raises his eyes to meet the next blow, “is a livestream of Liam’s face, right this moment. See the resemblance?”

On the PowerPoint presentation, Liam watches a tiny version of himself change from his unmistakably recognizable stubborn pout to his wide-eyed in-over-his-head fell-into-a-hole-flight-attendant grimace. Oh God!

“Theo,” Scott’s voice calls above Liam, somewhere on his right. “Maybe he’s had enough, don’t you think?”

“No,” Liam hears himself respond, devoid of emotions. “Let’s see this through. We need to see this through.”

He won’t raise his head anymore, probably till the end of the presentation. There are too many thoughts turning around in his head, too many feelings threatening to spill at the corner of his eyes, too many words burning his tongue. The werewolf is used to fighting anger down; until today, he’d never known he could feel the same about other emotions.

“It won’t be long now,” the chimera promises with a new-found softness in his voice. Liam may be imagining it. It may be a new trick, for all he cares. For the third time since the beginning of this life-changing and not-a-all-entertaining event, a nagging thought bangs at the corners’ of Liam’s consciousness, but Theo won’t give him a minute to dwell on it.

“You understood by now,” he intones now, “even the slower ones amongst you,” he adds as he pointedly looks at Stiles…

“Hey!”

“… that this particular chapter of our presentation focuses on how Liam and I are perceived from an external point of view.” the chimera keeps on, unbothered. “We’ve looked at pictures, we’ve looked at the past… but what do people who don’t know us think? For this very last…”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Liam mutters just as the doorbell rings.

And Liam bites his tongue, because Theo has clearly shown he would stop at nothing to make Liam’s utter humiliation complete. And as Theo saunters in his black boxers to the door to greet the newcomer, the werewolves in the room instantly recognizes the heartbeat, the scent, the step and finally the voice of the teenager who just joined their party. 

“Are you sure I’m not interrupting something? You’re in your boxers…”  
“It’s okay, Noley. You’re actually right on time.”  
“Concerns only slightly lessened,” Nolan Holloway sasses as he enters the living-room to meet the eyes of the whole Pack. Or at least, Liam guesses at the way his mouth clicks shut and his heart falters, because the blue-eyed beta is still resolutely keeping his own down on the incriminating pictures spread on his own clad thighs. “Right. Hello. Thanks for having me, probably against your will or even knowledge, I now gather.”  
“We’ll be quick, Nol’. Just tell them what you told me,” Theo reassures, but the beta hears danger in his tone. It’s not directed at the human, exactly. It sounds more like impatience.  
“Right. The things I do for… Anyways.” Nolan starts. “Theo wanted me to tell you about my time with the hunters. We had this map of Beacon Hills where we kept track of your movements to plan our next move. And you all were represented by whatever token we’d found at the moment to place on our board.”

Liam barely listens. He doesn’t need another proof, he thinks. Theo threw it in his face enough over the past twenty minutes to make sure of that. A punch wouldn’t have hurt more…

“Cool,” Stiles exclaims. “What was mine?”

Nolan levels him with a glare. “Who the fuck are you?”

Liam’s snort harmoniously synchronizes with Theo’s. Suddenly it hurts. 

“What?” Stiles splutters. “I’m Stiles.”

“And what,” Nolan counters, “the fuck is a Stiles?”

“A best friend” is the collective response from the Pack and Scott looks around with wide, amazed, eyes and an excited smile on his crooked jaw. Meet the True Puppy of the BH Pack! A grin of his own creeps on his beta’s face. Somehow Liam knows he’ll be okay after this. Things will never be the same, but they won’t be that different either. Probably. Lemur wonders if he’s making his denial face as the thought runs through his mind.

“Anyway,” Nolan drawls as he throws his backpack over a shoulder and in front of him to open the main compartment. He soon fishes a small red plastic heart that he hands to Scott: “Scott was the heart, for obvious reasons. Lydia,” he lists as he gives her a small figurine of Elsa, “was the queen, for even more obvious reasons. Malia was an hourglass, in relation to the sand and her being the fastest of the Pack. Derek, we symbolized with a wolf claw we took from one of Monroe’s first kill… Mason, as a traitor to his species, was represented as a snake, and Corey was just a coin, easy to overlook but potentially deadly all the same. Which leaves us with…”

Nolan went once more to pluck the last item in his backpack and retrieved a Yugi-Oh card between two fingers that he slowly turned to reveal to the assembly. Liam – who admittedly had finally deigned to look up to look at the tokens as his co-captain explained the dubious reasons for their choice – cringed. Why did every single one of his friends had such a flair for dramatic reveals? What was even up with this card move?

On the torn-up card, the beta could make out a pissed off Cerberus. What even…?

“Theo and Liam’s movements on the board were represented by a single item: the Cerberus. Two heads to remind us that where one would be, so would the other. With an equal strength and propension to fight. And a third head, so we wouldn’t forget that they’re unpredictable when they fight together. More dangerous. More than the sum of their parts, I guess.”

Nolan finishes his speech with a long sigh. He then takes a good look around his audience, then shrugs and proceeds to sit on the loveseat. Liam feels a little bad for him, because, if Nolan knew the kind of things this loveseat had been the unwilling participant of, he certainly wouldn’t be as eager to make himself at home. Oh well – to each his own.

“Alright,” Theo resumes, jerk voice effect fully in place, “we’re now twenty-four minutes and thirty-six seconds in. Let’s wrap it up, shall we? I’ll be quick to spare our very own Lemur’s feelings, okay? We’ve established that Liam cares about me, that I’m his anchor, that I make him laugh and dare I say it, happy, that he’s attracted to me physically, but also that from an outside perspective, there’s something special about the way he looks at me, about the way he deals with his feelings towards me AND about the way others see us.”

He clicks next and the last slide fades to a dark screen with a giant red heart glowing in the middle. Liam suddenly feels like throwing up.

“Now as you all know, I am not well acquainted with love. So, I’ll end this presentation with a question: in your heart of hearts, do you believe that the conclusion of this study is that Liam Dunbar is in love with me? And more importantly, if you don’t, what do you think it means about the presented material today?”

A shiver of excitation races through the assembly. It is fucking obvious what all of Liam’s friends and family and… acquaintances? think. But finally, this awful presentation is over and done with and...

“Now I’ll leave the mic to you!”, Theo speaks again, and Liam wants to die. “Any question?”

By now, Liam only has three questions: how long has he been in love with Theo Raeken? How long has Theo known? And above all, how bad did he mess up with those unrequited feelings he caught?

He raises a shaking hand.

“Yes, Little Wolf?” Theo asks, a predatory grin on his no-longer-deniably gorgeous face.

“Now that you’ve made your point, will you please put some pants back on?” he asks provocatively, lips pinched and clenched fists, a vague attempt to regain some composure. 

“Why?” the chimera wonders. “We’ve clearly established you, and possibly some other people in the room, are clearly enjoying the view…”

Liam’s arm drops back into his lap. The pictures clap loudly against his limbs. What now?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's up for a good old Q&A session?


	8. Q&A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've made a huge mistake...

There’s a lull in the Pack habitual agitation following Theo’s snarky (yet unarguable) answer. Then all the guests Liam never invited to squat his living-room start talking at the same time and Theo fucking Raeken, the Big Bad Chimera of Death, the evil host of the whole machination – Liam’s crush – has to bring his hands in front of him to placate them. 

“Maybe you should just raise your hand,” he offers, so full of himself Liam volunteers as tribute to do anything in his power to erase the condescending smirk of his face. Anything. “I’ll signal you when you can speak.”

The chimera looks so happy, stage directing this shit show that is now Liam’s Sunday afternoon, so blindingly stunning. A warm and sweet scent hits Liam’s nose: the Raeken boy’s very own blend of joy. How dare he smell so good after ruining Liam’s entire life?

“Can we kill him now?” Malia asks above Liam, slightly on his right. The beta notices she never raised her hand, but he can’t find him in himself to be upset about it. (He also knows he’d jump to protect his anchor the second she’d actually move to attack him. So, what? He’s a hypocrite. His roommate is no better anyways.)

“We can’t,” Scott whispers in her ear, but again… everybody benefits from their little one-on-one. “He’s Pack. We’ve established that.”

“Yes, Lady Jenna?” Theo exclaims, a little bit too fast, almost – almost – as if he’d been a little embarrassed by the confession of the True Alpha of Obliviousness. Liam wants to cuddle him (and choke him at the same time).

“May I be excused?” his mother politely asks. “I don’t think I’m needed for this part and since you boys aren’t doing your chores this afternoon…”

“Yes,” the boy interrupts again, this time with the modicum of decency to appear a bit sheepish. “Thank you for everything, Lady Jenna. For everything, really.”

“Anytime, Chipmunk,” she says, before standing up and turning back to pointedly stare at Liam. And then she’s off to another area of the house. Liam hears the stairs crack under her weight as the sounds of her humming recedes.

“Next question!” Chipmunk announces with a faint blush clutching at his cheeks. Lemur has probably never loved his mother as he does right now. 

“Yes. So,” a gravelly voice answers from the computer’s speaker. “Hellboy. Kid Hulk. Are they making out or what?”

“Peter. Go. Away. Last warning,” another gruffy voice echoes. Derek.

“Right,” Theo drawls, sparing a glance at Liam. “Anything else? Now is the moment!” he presses.

The werewolf knows the insistence is directed at him. He knows that he’s finally welcome, no, encouraged to speak. But he doesn’t dare asking the one question burning his tongue. He’s not ready to know. Especially not in front of his best friend, his Alpha, his co-captain, and his ex, thank you very much. It all sounds like very reasonable reservations to him. 

“I have one question,” Mason tries, after Theo nodded his approbation. “Theo, do you…”

The human gazes at Liam, then. Liam, who’s currently using their BFF telepathic link to the fullest to order him TO SHUT THE FUCK UP. He doesn’t know if it works, or if Mase caught his murderous glare, but the boy stammers and eventually closes his mouth with a clapping sound. Mission accomplished! Hurray for BFF powers…

The silence settles around the room once more. Liam spends the time faking a renewed interest on the pictures of him making heart eyes at Chipmunk. What a fucking joke! Lydia clears her throat and raises a graceful – and perfectly manicured – hand. 

“Yes?”

“Well,” she states, her tone as professional and carefully controlled as Theo’s, but with a feigned humility he obviously never mastered. “For starters, I’d like to compliment you on the presentation. It’s complete, concise and lively. Perfect use of the various media supporting the different steps of your argumentation.”

“But?” Theo prompts with a soft smile. 

“But there’s one thing I’ve failed to grasp, pardon my lack of imagination,” she simpers, before full-on entering her explanation mode. “You’ve brilliantly used every participant you held captive for this presentation: it’s obvious you’d mapped our reactions with extreme precaution; in certain cases, down to the words we’d use. Absolutely everyone here served their purpose…”

Liam listens, astounded, as the banshee lists the Pack members and the roles that they’ve played in the last thirty minutes. And for each piece of the chimera’s strategy she unfolds, he feels his anger coming back. Malia was to antagonize Theo so Liam wouldn’t have to and would be able to focus on the content of the presentation. 

The more Lydia talks, the more Liam realizes that this hellish presentation was never about him, never about his so-called love for Theo. Scott and Jenna, in their respective positions, both accepted the lost boy in their inner circles, while Mason provided peer acceptance. 

No, it was about Theo. Everything is always about Theo fucking Raeken. Corey and Nolan demonstrated that Theo had redeemed himself, with former victims as well as with former enemies. 

And that he was fucking good enough. Deserving. Liam cannot believe how blind he’s been the whole time. He’s so mad he’s trembling. Jackson and Ethan were reminders of past monsters turned Pack members and their willingness to help Theo out proved how close the three were and could become, in spite of the geographical distance between them. 

Yet the same Theo had humiliated Liam – countless times – in front of his whole world for his own gain. Derek, with Stiles’ assistance doubling as comic relief…

“Hey!” Stiles complained. “Lydia, love of my life, how could you…”

“… a way of emphasizing,” Lydia continued, as if she’d never been interrupted, “that their attraction towards each other, though obvious to anyone and never discussed, was never a problem for the Pack. You were really saying that who we love doesn’t matter, at least for the people in this room. As for Hayden, it’s pretty obvious you were aiming to get the ex’s benediction. But for me, where do I fit into…”

Another thought hits Liam then. That one thought, that has been bothering him since Theo barged into his room, finally becomes clear: it is the amount of time the chimera must have spent on this presentation. Gathering data, collecting evidence, building a narrative he could spin to match his guests’ reactions. And probably learning how to use PowerPoint in the meantime – unless the Dread Doctors happened to be fans of the Office Suite, which was unlikely. All this work…

Lydia stops then, and laughs. A clear, crystalline, sound that only ever comes out when she’s truly amused by someone’s wit, resounds in the conference-room slash auditorium slash living-room slash LIAM’S FUCKING HOUSE, DAMMIT!

“I’m here to expose your plan!” she explains, delighted.

“Like I said,” Theo confirms, a small smile playing on his very kissable – punchable – lips. “Today’s about honesty. It only works if we all do it.”

…Liam’s epiphany hits him like a train: Theo’s in love with him, too. There’s no other explanation for the sheer amount of time and effort he put into studying Liam for so long and designing this mess.

Slowly, the werewolf stands up, too. Mad. Theo loves him and yet, he chose to do… whatever this was? Liam means to clap his hands, ironically; but he decides halfway sassy isn’t him, so he drops the act after one clap. His arms fall against his hips. He’s furious. Stage 4 furious. Icy cold furious. And now the sole focus of Theo’s rapt attention. 

Good.

“Bravo Theo,” he drawls as he stalks towards him. “Great job! Awesome performance! Ten out of ten! Would recommend! Perfect development of your thesis.”

“You haven’t answered the question,” Theo whispers as he walks backwards to escape Liam’s aggressiveness. 

“You haven’t asked a question,” Liam shoots back as he continues his progression, now close enough to guide Theo with a hand pressing on the boy’s chest. “But I’ll answer anyway… What is the question, though? ‘Was the presentation good?’,” he suggests as he uses the weight of his body to pin the chimera against the TV wall. Theo grunts as his shoulder blades hit the wall. 

“Or is it: ‘Do I love you?’, is that it?” 

“Or am I attracted to you?” Liam offers as he rolls his hips up and against Theo’s boxers, throwing the chimera against the wall a second time. Following the momentum waving up his body, he angles his head up and catches Theo’s lower lip between his teeth. He pulls a little and releases it. It’s not a kiss, it’s not comfortable nor pleasurable but it’s possessive in a way that sends them both off track for a couple of seconds. Luckily, Liam recovers first. 

“Do you want to know what is missing in your presentation?” he says. “A proper introduction.”

From the corner of his vision, he catches Lydia’s proud nod. Well, Liam guesses he can consider the day seized now, can’t he?

“Who are you?” he questions, his attention back to the boy pressed under him, between a rock and a hard place. “Why this topic? What’s your angle? And more importantly, why would we listen to you about it?”

Theo simply stares at him, eyes wide. 

“You wanna know if I love you?” Liam continues – this crushing Lemur is on a roll. He suddenly remembers Hayden’s words at the beginning of the talk. “How could I love someone who doesn’t stick his neck out for me? Who’d go to extreme lengths to make sure my love for them is public without risking it all for me in return? Here’s my answer for you, Theo: I couldn’t. Because I deserve better,” he concludes, before pushing away from the shivering boy under him. 

Liam stomps out of the room then, but before he’s completely left it, he backtracks. Turning to face the audience, he pulls down his jeans, steps out of them and stands in plain red boxers.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go back to my Sunday, which is murdering twelve-year-old kids, in my underwear, in my room. Friends – and yes, Mason, before you ask, it still includes you. You’re my flight attendant, too. Forever. – I’ll trust you all will see yourselves out.”

And then he’s gone. He still hears Corey’s voice as he ascends the stairs to his bedroom.

“Do you think they spend too much time together?”

“Their problem is they don’t spend enough time together,” Mason corrects. 

“One of their problems,” Nolan sasses.

Theo, Liam blissfully notices, is finally completely silent.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Theo came to me as I was brushing my teeth, some time between the 2nd and the 3rd chapter, and told me what his plan was all along, I couldn't believe it. It wasn't up for me to discuss anyways, so I told him I'd write it as he'd plotted it. I tried to warn him that if he claimed free will, Liam would, too. And that Liam wouldn't go for this if Theo went for that. He didn't heed my warnings. And now...
> 
> Here we are!   
> I promise... last chapter will be up tomorrow. 
> 
> (Sometimes the way my characters seem to anticipate ahead more chapters than I do worries me.)


	9. Idiots Need To Repeat Once

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're concluding this story with the INTRO principle.
> 
> I wrote a story of over 15k about a 30-min long PowerPoint presentation... Let's not comment on that, shall we?
> 
> I should be saying something spiritual right now, but I'm all tapped out. See you next time.

Liam doesn’t hear a peep about PowerPoint for a full day after the debacle. 

‘Hear’ being the keyword, because, if he’s honest with himself (and damn Theo to hell and back… and to hell again, for starting this whole thing with honesty in the first place), it’s the only thing he can think about. Now that he’s cooled off, he’s figured out a few things. He needs to apologize to Mason, for starters, because he was right. He’s not looking forward to his BFF’s patronizing trademark look of “See? I’m not telling you I told you so because I’m THAT great.”

The beta is also a little mad at himself: the signs were everywhere. How would he even doubt the chimera’s feelings for him? They’d been hanging all over the presentation like fucking tinsel on a Christmas tree. Eventually, Liam’s cut himself a break, because he’ll also admit that one thing one Theo Raeken will always best him at, it’s deflecting and distracting. Doesn’t mean he’s not embarrassed for his tiny breakdown over the heart eyes pictures. (The werewolf may or may not have forgiven Corey, too; he’ll decide when he next meets Mason. If Mason’s not a dick about their fight.)

Mostly, Liam reflects about Theo’s plan, and about his own decision. His head is impressed by the cunning mind of his roommate, by the proofs he accumulated of his worthiness, the witnesses he gathered around Liam, all to prove to the beta that Theo could be a decent choice, that he was good enough for Liam to bestow his love towards him. 

“WELL, FUCK THAT!”, shouts his heart. The boy might be good enough… But Liam won’t take a chance on Theo if Theo won’t take a chance on Liam. The young werewolf had done it before: it hurt too much. He’s not about to profess his love for someone who doesn’t trust him enough to openly accept it, even though Theo so clearly desires it with everything he has… The older boy must have come to the same conclusion: he didn’t come to Liam’s bedroom after the Pack left, they didn’t talk. And it kills Liam: because being right doesn’t make him fell right. And after what his family and friends put him through the day before, it’s so unfair… 

Later, the high schooler will blame it on his perfectly justified moping. Still it takes him a couple of minutes to notice his French teacher, Mrs. Papete, closing the curtains and unfurling the white screen down in front of the black board. 

“Alright,” she calls students to attention. “This is highly unusual because he doesn’t take this class, but the day I’ll refuse my help to a student who requests extra credit has not arrived. So, we’ll take half of this class for an impromptu expose.”

At this point, Liam should probably have started to take a hint. But nothing had actually registered all day through the haze of the “I just realized I’m in love and I already fucked up” dark cloud raining over him. Until a very handsome man enters the classroom (Liam is allowed to look, okay?). Blue eyes. Blonde curly hair. An earnest expression over a perfectly adjusted scarf. Shit! Isaac Lahey. Scott’s first beta. What is he even doing back in Beacon Hills?

Isaac introduces himself as the student’s tutor and by that point, finally, the True Alpha of Obliviousness’s not really first beta gets a clue. He feels understanding illuminate his whole face: he doesn’t even think about fighting the smile that overtakes him… because right after Isaac, Theo Raeken runs into the room, panting and apologizing for his tardiness multiple times while he fumbles to connect his laptop to the projector. He sighs loudly once he’s ready and turns to his audience. Liam can’t stop himself from thinking, that even late and even clearly stressed out, Theo looks like a douchebag, like he’s putting up with everyone else in the world. (He can’t stop himself from finding it hot, either.)

“Bonjour, je m’appelle Théo Raeken,” he stammers, before continuing in a very approximative French. “I’m here today because I’m stupidly in love with Liam. I spend countless hours a day watching him when I’m not actively spending time with him, which kind of makes me an expert on all things Liam, especially in regard to me. Anyways, like I said, I’m here today because I think he’s in love with me, too.”

Wow.

Theo stops then, and his roaming gaze finally settles on Liam. The werewolf takes in his elevated heartrate and shortened breath, his dilated pupils in the at the dead center of equally wide eyes. Theo’s waiting. But for what? If he knew, Liam would help, obviously, but… Theo just. In front of the whole class. And he said…he said… It hits Liam then. Letting out a chuckle, he plants his own blue eyes in Theo’s grey eyes and shouts, from his seat on the fourth row: 

“J’te déteste !”

A grin breaks out on the chimera’s face.

“And that,” he continues in French, his own blinding smile now matching Liam’s, “is a great introductory point to my first argument…”

The presentation is awful. Theo doesn’t speak a word of French and his accent is so heavy Liam’s certain even Mrs Papete struggles to understand him. Though he’d learnt the first few sentences by heart, Theo’s speech very quickly turns into a garbled mix of English and Spanish, with the occasional French word thrown into it by Isaac. The chimera doesn’t even pretend to be repeating Isaac’s suggestions of vocabulary towards the end. He just plows through. Aside from language problem (which is a pretty big one for a presentation), it turns out that most of Theo’s effects, without the Pack to enable him, are out of whack, when they’re simply not absolute non-sense. Again, the werewolf would be positively surprised if Mrs Papete got a word of it. What she does understand, though, and quite clearly, is the stripper pants Theo tears off in front of the whole class, at which point, Liam who can no longer help himself, stands up and runs towards Theo to lay a big one on him.

They’re both thrown out of class for public indecency. And Theo doesn’t get any credit for his hard work. Liam thinks for a moment about being annoyed at Isaac for filming the whole scene, but, with Theo’s lips against his own in the privacy of the detention room, he decides he can let go of his grumpiness. For now. Between two heavy make-out sessions, Liam makes him promise to never ever make a PowerPoint presentation again…

 

Luckily, the promise doesn’t extend to Liam himself. Five years, two months, twenty-three days, five hours, fourty-seven minutes and fifty-two seconds later (yes, two can play the time-keeping game, Raeken), the whole Pack is gathered for Theo’s birthday in a small restaurant they reserved for the occasion. And Liam uses Theo’s quick departure to the restrooms to hook up his laptop to the owner’s projector. 

When the chimera comes back, absentmindedly running a hand through his hair, Liam is standing in the middle of the room, nervously wiping his own against his white button-up shirt. The chimera throws him a quizzing look when he notices the stranded chair facing Liam, but he’s immensely grown over the past years and he trusts Liam, his newfound family, and his friends, with anything these days. 

“Hi,” Liam says.

“Hi,” Theo breathes back.

He’s so breathtakingly beautiful Liam considers throwing his plan to the winds to make out with him on the chair instead. What an asshole!

“I’m Liam Dunbar,” the beta continues after clearing his throat. “I’m in love stupid with Theo Raeken. I’ve been for a while now, and I know him really well. Which is why I want to talk to you today about a very important topic concerning him. And me.”

He presses on the right arrow on his laptop’s keyboard. The familiar wallpaper of a black heart over a black background appears, and on top, white cursives read: “Why Theo Raeken should be called Theo Dunbar”

“YES!” Theo shouts at the very moment he finishes to decipher the title. “Yes! I’ll marry you!”

“Shut the fuck up, dumbass!” Liam shouts back. “I haven’t even asked the question!”

The presenter gives himself a second to breathe then, because though the probability of Theo saying yes was high, it’s still nice to have it confirmed. He takes his moment to look at the chimera then, eyes crinkled in laughter and delight over a joke Corey just cracked, head lightly thrown backwards as he leans on Nolan’s shoulder to ask him for his drink. Liam drinks in the unadulterated joy emanating from the love of his life, surrounded by family and friends, as he hugs himself in his pale pink hoodie to regain his composure, thumb absently stroking the capital ‘C’ Liam’s mum knitted with brown wool on the front. He thinks about their shared history, then, about the challenges of their relationship, about the obstacles they pushed through, about how his heart almost painfully clenches every time he wakes up next to Theo and how it spreads warmth through his sleepy limbs when Theo’s gravelly voice mutters a croaked ‘hello’. 

He exhales. He can’t fuck this up. And he won’t. He knows he won’t. He prepared for this. Gabe’s family is connected on Skype, ready to thank Theo for holding their son’s hand through his last moments. He’s got footage of Theo snuffling in his neck when ‘Lady Jenna’ caught them napping last Thanksgiving break; he’s got Nolan and Corey ready to fight to the death (over ridiculous trials) to be Theo’s best man; and he’s got Theo’s real parents hiding behind curtain number three (which is really the double door leading to the restaurant’s kitchen, but they’ll make do). He’s also wearing the tightest underwear he could fit into without tearing it (though he’s making no promises over the state of said garment later in the night) and he practiced the move to rip his entire clothing in one go so many times Jackson had to replace a couple of Velcros. He’s ready.

Ready to start a new life with the boy who’s patiently sitting, waiting for him to collect himself. 

“Now… Now, take a seat, coywolf, and listen! You’re in for thirty exciting minutes of self-discovery,” he announces, with as much self-confidence and sarcasm he can muster. 

“I love you,” Theo says, simply, a small smile playing on his lips.

Liam offers a predatory grin. 

“I love you, too. And THAT,” he promises, “is a great introductory point to my first argument…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I hope: 
> 
> 1\. That this deep-dive into the do's and dont's of PowerPoint presentations was as educamentational as it was fun. J/K. (Seriously, guys, don't forget to introduce the speaker. It could save lives.)
> 
> 2\. That it ties every wandering piece of plot together with a pretty little ribbon. God knows I've been trying hard to make that happen.

**Author's Note:**

> In case you didn't know, the KISS principle is a real thing.  
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
> 
>  
> 
> This work has been gifted to TheodoreR because Liam in this story has been loosely inspired from TheodoreR's 'The Neighbors Song'.  
> If you enjoyed reading KISS, then it is a must-read.  
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/15499173


End file.
